1. Field of Art
The present disclosure relates generally to the field of digital media sharing on a network, and specifically, to the field of hosting and representation of digital data between network servers and end-user browsers.
2. Description of the Related Art
With conventional digital media sharing, a user makes various files located on a user computer available to the public by publishing references to the files on a publishing website (or web site). Specifically, the files first must be uploaded to a file hosting service. The file hosting service consists of network attached computers (servers) and databases. Once uploaded to the file hosting service servers, public references or universal resource locators (URLS) pointing to the uploaded files at the file hosting service servers must be published at the publishing website. A publishing website is also a network attached computer, or a group computers (servers), designed with the purpose of presenting said digital media (images, video or sound files).
The conventional sharing process involves explicit user interaction with two separate services: a publishing website and a hosting service. Currently available processes for publishing files have several deficiencies. For example, while viewing the publishing website, a user must temporary switch attention to the website of the hosting service in order to upload a file in preparation for sharing. This may involve techniques such as remembering the location of the hosting service's website, such as by using bookmarks or by opening a new browser window. These techniques are time consuming, cumbersome and error-prone.
Another problem is that sharing files is a two-step process. After files are uploaded to the hosting service, references to them must be manually transmitted to the publishing website. Again, this process is time-consuming, cumbersome, and error-prone. These problems are particularly prevelant if the user chooses to retype these references, or if the user utilizes his computer's clipboard (e.g. copy and paste). The clipboard content is often lost to do subsequent user “copy” actions, which would require a user to repeat desired copy and paste process.
Alternate solutions to uploading images to a web site typically include a desktop application. To upload in image a user launches the application and attaches the images to within that application in order to upload the image. Thereafter, the user instructs the applet to upload to a web site associated with that application. The problems with this approach include a series of steps required for the upload, the execution of an intermediary application, and having that application configured to work only with a predetermined site. This decreases overall efficiency and limits the flexibility of use.
Still another problem is when inserting references to the files into a hypertext markup language (HTML) form, the user must ensure use of the correct reference syntax. For example, different publishing websites use different syntax for referencing files, with which the user may not be familiar.
Thus, the present art lacks an easy to use process for posting media content on network sites such as a web site on the Internet.